WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.020 --> 00:00:03.180 align:middle line:84% I never ask questions at these, but I 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:08.810 align:middle line:84% have to share with the audience a most recent poem of yours 00:00:08.810 --> 00:00:10.910 align:middle line:90% that was in the Paris Review. 00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:15.470 align:middle line:84% And to know this master of syntax, who takes you 00:00:15.470 --> 00:00:18.170 align:middle line:84% on trips that you never knew were going to be taking, 00:00:18.170 --> 00:00:22.730 align:middle line:84% and I just advise you to wear sensible shoes. 00:00:22.730 --> 00:00:24.800 align:middle line:90% This poem in there-- 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:28.070 align:middle line:84% I just let out a squeal, and my husband thought, perhaps, 00:00:28.070 --> 00:00:32.510 align:middle line:84% I'd broken another rib-- but he ends this poem-- 00:00:32.510 --> 00:00:35.930 align:middle line:90% wait for it-- with a semicolon. 00:00:35.930 --> 00:00:39.320 align:middle line:84% And he had trouble convincing the editors that that's 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:40.850 align:middle line:90% how it was going to be. 00:00:40.850 --> 00:00:42.370 align:middle line:84% And I just want to know if you want 00:00:42.370 --> 00:00:45.845 align:middle line:84% to make any comment about the implications of stopping 00:00:45.845 --> 00:00:48.530 align:middle line:90% with a semicolon. 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:50.870 align:middle line:84% The implications of stopping with a semicolon. 00:00:50.870 --> 00:01:00.970 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean-- it just seemed I wanted to have the poem 00:01:00.970 --> 00:01:04.959 align:middle line:84% end with a series of images, with the implication that they 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:05.890 align:middle line:90% go on. 00:01:05.890 --> 00:01:08.170 align:middle line:84% But many people do an ellipsis at the end for that. 00:01:08.170 --> 00:01:09.870 align:middle line:90% Or a dash. 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:11.860 align:middle line:84% And I don't know, I just do a semicolon. 00:01:11.860 --> 00:01:14.320 align:middle line:90% And then I thought, oh-- 00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:17.050 align:middle line:84% because I'm kind of a punctuation nerd-- 00:01:17.050 --> 00:01:21.470 align:middle line:84% I thought this is actually like almost sexual. 00:01:21.470 --> 00:01:23.350 align:middle line:90% [? I ?] [? see ?] Oh, no. 00:01:23.350 --> 00:01:26.814 align:middle line:84% You've just done something that is forbidden. 00:01:26.814 --> 00:01:29.500 align:middle line:84% But the other thought, but then, why not stay? 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:32.150 align:middle line:90% It feels good. 00:01:32.150 --> 00:01:33.932 align:middle line:90% So I mean, that was it. 00:01:33.932 --> 00:01:35.140 align:middle line:90% I thought that would be fine. 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:36.723 align:middle line:84% And I thought, well, that's different. 00:01:36.723 --> 00:01:38.160 align:middle line:90% Maybe I'm doing something new. 00:01:38.160 --> 00:01:38.660 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:44.050 align:middle line:84% And when I sent it in, because the person who had asked 00:01:44.050 --> 00:01:47.890 align:middle line:84% for the poem was Henri Cole, the guest editor for this, 00:01:47.890 --> 00:01:52.810 align:middle line:84% and he's wonderful in many ways, but he doesn't-- 00:01:52.810 --> 00:01:55.060 align:middle line:84% he's very particular about the semicolon. 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:59.060 align:middle line:84% And so I think he just thought, OK, Carl. 00:01:59.060 --> 00:01:59.560 align:middle line:90% Whatever. 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:02.230 align:middle line:84% Because the editors are going to tell you what you have to do. 00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:03.160 align:middle line:90% And then they did. 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:05.770 align:middle line:84% And said, oh, it's going to look like a mistake. 00:02:05.770 --> 00:02:07.030 align:middle line:90% And so I tried to change it. 00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:08.259 align:middle line:90% I tried. 00:02:08.259 --> 00:02:10.419 align:middle line:90% And erased it. 00:02:10.419 --> 00:02:11.620 align:middle line:90% And then put it back. 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:13.120 align:middle line:90% And I thought, it didn't-- 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:16.280 align:middle line:84% I truly felt like it had to be there. 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:19.810 align:middle line:84% Which seems really self-indulgent or something. 00:02:19.810 --> 00:02:21.445 align:middle line:90% But it seemed right. 00:02:21.445 --> 00:02:23.320 align:middle line:84% I'm not going to do it again, because then it 00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:25.330 align:middle line:90% would become just a thing. 00:02:25.330 --> 00:02:26.980 align:middle line:84% I want it to just be there, floating-- 00:02:26.980 --> 00:02:29.282 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:29.282 --> 00:02:29.782 align:middle line:90% Mm-hmm-- 00:02:29.782 --> 00:02:30.716 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:30.716 --> 00:02:32.576 align:middle line:90% Semicolon. 00:02:32.576 --> 00:02:33.550 align:middle line:90% Another question? 00:02:33.550 --> 00:02:34.050 align:middle line:90% Hello. 00:02:34.050 --> 00:02:43.640 align:middle line:90% 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:44.871 align:middle line:90% Oh, it's real awkward. 00:02:44.871 --> 00:02:49.110 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:50.510 align:middle line:84% It's like going to get the Oscar, 00:02:50.510 --> 00:02:54.240 align:middle line:84% when you're way in the back or something, unexpectedly. 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:59.180 align:middle line:84% I have a question about your essay on myth and fable 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:02.370 align:middle line:90% and their place in poetry. 00:03:02.370 --> 00:03:04.130 align:middle line:84% So you write about the difference 00:03:04.130 --> 00:03:07.460 align:middle line:84% between a mythic and great poem and a poem 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:11.690 align:middle line:84% that is maybe overburdened by autobiographical detail, 00:03:11.690 --> 00:03:15.110 align:middle line:84% or that it's harder for it to be mythic 00:03:15.110 --> 00:03:17.300 align:middle line:84% with a lot of autobiographical detail. 00:03:17.300 --> 00:03:21.570 align:middle line:84% And I'm just wondering how that works out 00:03:21.570 --> 00:03:23.460 align:middle line:90% in your writing process. 00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:25.850 align:middle line:90% How do you consider that. 00:03:25.850 --> 00:03:26.780 align:middle line:90% Huh. 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:29.270 align:middle line:84% I'm still taking in that I said that, so-- 00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:32.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:32.030 --> 00:03:33.410 align:middle line:90% 00:03:33.410 --> 00:03:34.970 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm not setting out, though, 00:03:34.970 --> 00:03:36.420 align:middle line:90% to write myths or something. 00:03:36.420 --> 00:03:37.670 align:middle line:90% So, I don't know. 00:03:37.670 --> 00:03:39.950 align:middle line:90% I guess I don't think of it. 00:03:39.950 --> 00:03:41.240 align:middle line:90% I just sort of-- 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:45.597 align:middle line:90% although I don't think-- 00:03:45.597 --> 00:03:47.180 align:middle line:84% first of all, I'm wondering if I think 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:49.070 align:middle line:84% that's true about autobiographical detail. 00:03:49.070 --> 00:03:49.790 align:middle line:90% Maybe I do. 00:03:49.790 --> 00:03:52.550 align:middle line:84% But that was just right about myths. 00:03:52.550 --> 00:03:55.735 align:middle line:84% But my own poems are just poems, and so-- 00:03:55.735 --> 00:03:57.110 align:middle line:84% having said that, I don't feel as 00:03:57.110 --> 00:03:59.810 align:middle line:84% if my poems are laden with autobiographical details, 00:03:59.810 --> 00:04:01.088 align:middle line:90% either. 00:04:01.088 --> 00:04:03.380 align:middle line:84% But not because I'm trying to make them turn into myths 00:04:03.380 --> 00:04:04.520 align:middle line:90% of the future or something. 00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:06.950 align:middle line:90% I'm just-- I don't know. 00:04:06.950 --> 00:04:11.450 align:middle line:84% I guess I'm not into sharing lots of personal stuff. 00:04:11.450 --> 00:04:16.100 align:middle line:84% But I do think that the myths that we have, 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:19.070 align:middle line:84% the reason why they last, is because we don't actually-- 00:04:19.070 --> 00:04:20.540 align:middle line:90% they seem to sort of relate. 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:23.580 align:middle line:90% We can relate to them. 00:04:23.580 --> 00:04:27.830 align:middle line:84% Not universally, whatever the word is that one uses. 00:04:27.830 --> 00:04:31.610 align:middle line:84% And it's harder to do that with something that's very private, 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:32.480 align:middle line:90% maybe. 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:35.420 align:middle line:84% But I think of people like Sylvia Plath or Dickinson. 00:04:35.420 --> 00:04:38.210 align:middle line:84% I think they were writing very interior, private poems, 00:04:38.210 --> 00:04:41.210 align:middle line:90% and yet they resonate. 00:04:41.210 --> 00:04:44.540 align:middle line:90% So I don't know is the answer. 00:04:44.540 --> 00:04:45.110 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:04:45.110 --> 00:04:48.060 align:middle line:90% It's the best I could do. 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:49.070 align:middle line:90% Gretchen. 00:04:49.070 --> 00:04:51.380 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:04:51.380 --> 00:04:52.790 align:middle line:90% Howdy. 00:04:52.790 --> 00:04:55.280 align:middle line:90% As they say in Missouri. 00:04:55.280 --> 00:04:55.790 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:57.080 align:middle line:90% So ew, gross. 00:04:57.080 --> 00:04:58.280 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:58.280 --> 00:05:01.280 align:middle line:84% So my question-- I know this might take away from some 00:05:01.280 --> 00:05:05.810 align:middle line:84% of the mystery and fun stuff in your title poem For Wild Is 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:10.790 align:middle line:84% the Wind, but just for a personal ease of anxieties, 00:05:10.790 --> 00:05:11.540 align:middle line:90% the child-- 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:12.620 align:middle line:90% is the child real? 00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:14.840 align:middle line:84% Did you really just let a child go? 00:05:14.840 --> 00:05:15.890 align:middle line:90% Or-- 00:05:15.890 --> 00:05:16.430 align:middle line:90% No. 00:05:16.430 --> 00:05:16.930 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:18.194 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:18.194 --> 00:05:19.440 align:middle line:90% I assumed that. 00:05:19.440 --> 00:05:20.890 align:middle line:84% When I met you today, I was like, 00:05:20.890 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% I don't think he would just let a child go run a-- 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:24.100 align:middle line:90% No. 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:24.550 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:24.550 --> 00:05:25.050 align:middle line:90% No. 00:05:25.050 --> 00:05:26.953 align:middle line:84% Where did that vision come from then? 00:05:26.953 --> 00:05:28.120 align:middle line:90% Where does vision come from? 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.280 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:30.280 --> 00:05:32.530 align:middle line:84% What is true is that I did live in a house that 00:05:32.530 --> 00:05:33.700 align:middle line:90% was next to a woods. 00:05:33.700 --> 00:05:37.060 align:middle line:84% And hunters would emerge during the winter. 00:05:37.060 --> 00:05:39.910 align:middle line:84% They would get lost, actually, and show up 00:05:39.910 --> 00:05:43.780 align:middle line:84% in the backyard with rifles or sometimes with something 00:05:43.780 --> 00:05:44.320 align:middle line:90% they killed. 00:05:44.320 --> 00:05:46.600 align:middle line:84% And [INAUDIBLE] where-- is this your yard? 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:50.140 align:middle line:84% And I have to tell them how to find the road again. 00:05:50.140 --> 00:05:54.940 align:middle line:84% And it's also true that I had heard the woods was 00:05:54.940 --> 00:05:56.170 align:middle line:90% all conservation land. 00:05:56.170 --> 00:05:58.120 align:middle line:84% And for a few weeks, someone said 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:00.850 align:middle line:84% that there was a missing child who had run away. 00:06:00.850 --> 00:06:03.250 align:middle line:84% And he was believed to be hiding in the woods. 00:06:03.250 --> 00:06:05.410 align:middle line:90% But I never saw this kid. 00:06:05.410 --> 00:06:06.430 align:middle line:90% And no. 00:06:06.430 --> 00:06:08.485 align:middle line:90% I would report this-- 00:06:08.485 --> 00:06:10.348 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:10.348 --> 00:06:14.620 align:middle line:84% --to child services and not give money and say, it's OK, kid. 00:06:14.620 --> 00:06:16.920 align:middle line:90% Go ahead. 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:20.890 align:middle line:84% But people have asked about that, and yeah. 00:06:20.890 --> 00:06:22.970 align:middle line:90% But imagination. 00:06:22.970 --> 00:06:26.150 align:middle line:90% It's just Imagination. 00:06:26.150 --> 00:06:27.325 align:middle line:90% But I'm glad. 00:06:27.325 --> 00:06:28.450 align:middle line:90% I hope you feel better now. 00:06:28.450 --> 00:06:28.950 align:middle line:90% I do. 00:06:28.950 --> 00:06:32.542 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:32.542 --> 00:06:34.000 align:middle line:84% Even though there's some part of me 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.150 align:middle line:84% that thinks that there's something about being lost 00:06:37.150 --> 00:06:40.630 align:middle line:84% that's good for a person, including a child. 00:06:40.630 --> 00:06:42.860 align:middle line:84% But I know the world is the way it is now. 00:06:42.860 --> 00:06:44.230 align:middle line:90% And so we can't do that. 00:06:44.230 --> 00:06:49.150 align:middle line:84% But I used to be lost in the woods all the time as a kid. 00:06:49.150 --> 00:06:51.370 align:middle line:84% And we didn't have phones and all that. 00:06:51.370 --> 00:06:54.530 align:middle line:90% But it was a different world. 00:06:54.530 --> 00:06:56.050 align:middle line:90% So I understand. 00:06:56.050 --> 00:06:57.160 align:middle line:90% Report lost children. 00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:00.280 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:02.302 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:07:02.302 --> 00:07:03.010 align:middle line:90% Well, is that it? 00:07:03.010 --> 00:07:05.625 align:middle line:84% It might be without a concluding-- 00:07:05.625 --> 00:07:06.990 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:08.930 align:middle line:90% No, we'd like to hear. 00:07:08.930 --> 00:07:09.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:09.930 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:07:09.930 --> 00:07:13.110 align:middle line:90% 00:07:13.110 --> 00:07:18.050 align:middle line:84% I'll bet I could hear if you just, well, give it a shout. 00:07:18.050 --> 00:07:20.120 align:middle line:84% I just want to know since you frequently 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:22.370 align:middle line:84% judge first book contests, what have you been excited 00:07:22.370 --> 00:07:24.920 align:middle line:84% about in the first book manuscripts you've been reading 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:26.300 align:middle line:90% over the past few years? 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:36.360 align:middle line:84% Oh, well, I'm attracted to messiness and risk. 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:38.720 align:middle line:84% And I feel like a way to answer it 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:41.780 align:middle line:84% for me is I think what I have not been liking that I see 00:07:41.780 --> 00:07:44.900 align:middle line:84% a lot of is manuscripts where I think, 00:07:44.900 --> 00:07:46.970 align:middle line:90% this manuscript does no harm. 00:07:46.970 --> 00:07:49.730 align:middle line:90% 00:07:49.730 --> 00:07:53.150 align:middle line:84% So I can't say I dislike it, but it's not doing anything that's 00:07:53.150 --> 00:07:55.550 align:middle line:90% making it leap out to me. 00:07:55.550 --> 00:07:58.143 align:middle line:84% And I think it's because people sometimes 00:07:58.143 --> 00:07:59.810 align:middle line:84% are thinking they want to win a contest, 00:07:59.810 --> 00:08:01.310 align:middle line:84% and they're trying to make the manuscript be what 00:08:01.310 --> 00:08:02.840 align:middle line:90% they think the judge wants. 00:08:02.840 --> 00:08:05.840 align:middle line:84% But I actually like encountering a manuscript where at first I 00:08:05.840 --> 00:08:07.650 align:middle line:84% don't understand what's going on. 00:08:07.650 --> 00:08:09.100 align:middle line:90% I think, wow, this is different. 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:09.850 align:middle line:90% I don't know what. 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:14.540 align:middle line:84% It seems it might be a mess, but I'll put it aside to revisit. 00:08:14.540 --> 00:08:17.055 align:middle line:84% And that's because-- the Yale prize 00:08:17.055 --> 00:08:18.680 align:middle line:84% is the one I've been doing for a while. 00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:22.940 align:middle line:84% And that's what's happened in each case, where I-- 00:08:22.940 --> 00:08:24.890 align:middle line:84% like Airea D. Matthews's first book. 00:08:24.890 --> 00:08:28.640 align:middle line:84% I had no understanding of what was going on in it at first. 00:08:28.640 --> 00:08:31.140 align:middle line:84% But I could tell that it was something different. 00:08:31.140 --> 00:08:33.679 align:middle line:84% And I think of it the way I think of people. 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:38.210 align:middle line:84% There are a lot of people you meet and you think-- 00:08:38.210 --> 00:08:41.390 align:middle line:84% I think-- I guess that person is fine. 00:08:41.390 --> 00:08:42.458 align:middle line:90% Nothing stands out. 00:08:42.458 --> 00:08:44.750 align:middle line:84% But then there'll be someone else where what stands out 00:08:44.750 --> 00:08:48.200 align:middle line:84% could be an unpleasant streak, or a really super great one 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:49.533 align:middle line:90% maybe, but often unpleasant one. 00:08:49.533 --> 00:08:51.325 align:middle line:84% But you think at least they have character. 00:08:51.325 --> 00:08:52.770 align:middle line:90% They have something different. 00:08:52.770 --> 00:08:55.880 align:middle line:84% They're not just blending in with the usual. 00:08:55.880 --> 00:08:59.330 align:middle line:84% And so I guess I've been excited by those manuscripts 00:08:59.330 --> 00:09:04.070 align:middle line:84% that fortunately always surface that take chances. 00:09:04.070 --> 00:09:06.770 align:middle line:84% Or sometimes they aren't even thinking about taking chances. 00:09:06.770 --> 00:09:08.660 align:middle line:90% They just happen to be that way. 00:09:08.660 --> 00:09:09.920 align:middle line:90% Like Emily Dickinson. 00:09:09.920 --> 00:09:12.560 align:middle line:90% Who's a mess in some ways. 00:09:12.560 --> 00:09:15.070 align:middle line:84% I have no idea what she's writing about most of the time. 00:09:15.070 --> 00:09:18.170 align:middle line:90% But we still read her. 00:09:18.170 --> 00:09:20.630 align:middle line:84% Whereas there could be someone who's much more careful. 00:09:20.630 --> 00:09:22.450 align:middle line:90% And I don't think that-- 00:09:22.450 --> 00:09:23.825 align:middle line:84% for me, that doesn't do anything. 00:09:23.825 --> 00:09:26.670 align:middle line:90% 00:09:26.670 --> 00:09:28.457 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:09:28.457 --> 00:09:30.290 align:middle line:84% I mean, at least my feeling, you should just 00:09:30.290 --> 00:09:33.890 align:middle line:84% write what you have to write and not be worrying about what 00:09:33.890 --> 00:09:34.580 align:middle line:90% judges think. 00:09:34.580 --> 00:09:37.720 align:middle line:90% 00:09:37.720 --> 00:09:40.014 align:middle line:84% OK. [? Probably ?] just one more. 00:09:40.014 --> 00:09:40.958 align:middle line:90% Sure. 00:09:40.958 --> 00:09:43.190 align:middle line:90% I can't help asking. 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:46.630 align:middle line:84% Since Tyler began with the reference 00:09:46.630 --> 00:09:50.950 align:middle line:84% to being lost in the woods, and then in a number of your poems 00:09:50.950 --> 00:09:55.240 align:middle line:84% tonight, if I'm not mistaken, a forest appears. 00:09:55.240 --> 00:09:57.650 align:middle line:84% And then what you just said autobiographically about-- 00:09:57.650 --> 00:09:58.150 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:09:58.150 --> 00:09:58.930 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:09:58.930 --> 00:10:02.050 align:middle line:84% Is that both an experience and a theme, a metaphor, 00:10:02.050 --> 00:10:06.340 align:middle line:84% that informs your other work in other ways? 00:10:06.340 --> 00:10:07.420 align:middle line:90% In other poems, you mean? 00:10:07.420 --> 00:10:08.380 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:10:08.380 --> 00:10:09.250 align:middle line:90% I guess it does. 00:10:09.250 --> 00:10:14.260 align:middle line:90% I mean, I guess I think of it-- 00:10:14.260 --> 00:10:19.510 align:middle line:90% 00:10:19.510 --> 00:10:22.600 align:middle line:84% I haven't really thought it through in this way, 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:25.460 align:middle line:84% but when I think of things like the forests and being lost, 00:10:25.460 --> 00:10:27.190 align:middle line:84% I also feel as if, in some ways, that's 00:10:27.190 --> 00:10:32.140 align:middle line:84% been my whole life as a person who has been marginalized. 00:10:32.140 --> 00:10:36.130 align:middle line:84% Early on, as a person of color, in particular biracial person, 00:10:36.130 --> 00:10:38.620 align:middle line:84% so you grow up with people not believing your parents 00:10:38.620 --> 00:10:41.620 align:middle line:84% are your parents and all of that. 00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:45.340 align:middle line:84% And then coming into one's own understanding of being 00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:51.310 align:middle line:84% a gay man and feeling in some way, at least in my generation, 00:10:51.310 --> 00:10:55.150 align:middle line:84% or at least how I grew up, as if that was some weird thing. 00:10:55.150 --> 00:10:59.050 align:middle line:84% So I think I've always felt as if I grew up in the margins. 00:10:59.050 --> 00:11:03.080 align:middle line:84% And to me, that's kind of what the forest is, in a way. 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:05.980 align:middle line:84% At least in fairy tales, it's sort of this place where 00:11:05.980 --> 00:11:07.300 align:middle line:90% who knows what happens in it. 00:11:07.300 --> 00:11:08.600 align:middle line:90% It's dangerous. 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:11.680 align:middle line:90% But for me, it's also thrilling. 00:11:11.680 --> 00:11:14.200 align:middle line:84% I was just talking to my own students 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:19.060 align:middle line:84% yesterday about how I think some of the most exciting writing 00:11:19.060 --> 00:11:21.860 align:middle line:84% is coming from people who have historically been marginalized. 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:25.540 align:middle line:84% And I think it's because when you 00:11:25.540 --> 00:11:28.210 align:middle line:84% have come to believe that no one's listening to you anyway, 00:11:28.210 --> 00:11:30.098 align:middle line:84% then you stop caring about how you say it. 00:11:30.098 --> 00:11:31.390 align:middle line:90% You just say whatever you want. 00:11:31.390 --> 00:11:36.100 align:middle line:84% And you feel free in some way to write the way you want 00:11:36.100 --> 00:11:38.600 align:middle line:84% or dance or just live the way you want. 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:43.880 align:middle line:84% So I suppose I haven't ever thought 00:11:43.880 --> 00:11:46.675 align:middle line:84% about the woods of marginalization or something. 00:11:46.675 --> 00:11:48.050 align:middle line:84% I don't think it stands for that. 00:11:48.050 --> 00:11:49.790 align:middle line:84% But I mean, there's also just the fact 00:11:49.790 --> 00:11:52.400 align:middle line:90% that I love being in a forest. 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:53.260 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:53.260 --> 00:11:56.240 align:middle line:90% Just that basic thing. 00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:58.280 align:middle line:84% It made it very strange to have land here. 00:11:58.280 --> 00:11:59.177 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:59.177 --> 00:11:59.885 align:middle line:90% Not very foresty. 00:11:59.885 --> 00:12:01.460 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:03.240 align:middle line:90% It's very exposed. 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:07.922 align:middle line:84% I can't get away with much, it seems so-- 00:12:07.922 --> 00:12:08.630 align:middle line:90% but anyway, yeah. 00:12:08.630 --> 00:12:09.713 align:middle line:90% It's an interesting thing. 00:12:09.713 --> 00:12:13.540 align:middle line:84% I haven't thought about it, that question. 00:12:13.540 --> 00:12:17.150 align:middle line:84% So [INAUDIBLE] Thank you so much, everybody. 00:12:17.150 --> 00:12:19.000 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]